


across the universe divide

by t_hy_la



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Spirk, First Contact, M/M, Modern, Smart Jim, don't rule out some farmer spock in the future, farmer jim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28646112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_hy_la/pseuds/t_hy_la
Summary: Spock crash lands in Jim's cornfield, and it's just what Jim needed, really.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If this seems familiar it's because I had previously posted it, but took it down to fix it up and get it ready to continue! I have chapter 2 already finished and will post in a few days or so.

It isn’t often that Jim Kirk’s life was interrupted. Every day he wakes up alone, right before dawn seeps through the windows of his farmhouse bedroom. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes, swings his legs over the edge of his bed, stands, and stretches. These are mundane mornings to pair with mundane afternoons, evenings, nights. 

Despite popular belief, tending to a small farm in Middle-of-Nowhere Iowa is boring. Jim’s body aches every day with the strain of all the work, and his mind aches for more. Turns out, off-the-charts aptitude tests mean nothing when you’re the sole owner of a farm no one wants and the sole doer of the jobs no one else will. So, when Jim was pulled from his usual restless sleep by a consistent, loud banging on the front door rather than the typical droning beeps of his alarm, it was at least a little out of the ordinary. The subsequential swinging of legs and stretching portion of his routine was done slightly faster than normal. The knocking persisted.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Jim muttered, well out of earshot from his unplanned company. The third, seventh, and last stairs gave their usual half-hearted creak as he made his way down them, pulling a t-shirt on as he went. He made it to the front door in the kitchen, the tile cold on his bare feet. He opened the door, and was greeted,  _ greeted is a loose term _ , Jim thought, by three men in suits. 

Jim had seen more than his fair share of movies (there wasn’t much to do in Riverside, in his defense) and these men looked like they had been pulled right out of one. All three men were fairly identical, tall with broad shoulders, sporting buzz-cuts and dead looks in their eyes, giving off a general don’t-mess-with-us-vibe. This, like most things, didn’t deter Jim. The large farmhouse was hard enough to keep warm from the already chill October nights, and the wide-open door was letting in the cold.

“Look, if this is about the power bill, I’ll have it next week, and it’s awfully early-” Jim started, only to have his rant cut off before he even really began it. 

“Jim Kirk? We need to come in and ask you a few questions,” said the man who had obviously been doing the knocking, and now appeared to be doing the talking. The three men pulled out badges Jim didn’t recognize, but they looked official enough, and Jim’s got nothing to lose. It was this or milking the cows. He stepped aside, and the men walked in. The closed door stopped the cold, but their presence in his kitchen certainly didn’t bring any warmth.

“Have you noticed any suspicious or unusual activity on or around your property in the last 36 hours?” The Talker asked, wasting no time. Jim paused for a minute to think. 

“Depends on what you’d consider unusual, gentlemen,” he said as he reached to the counter and grabbed an apple, taking a bite before continuing to talk, mouth full, “Betty, my best cow, isn’t milking like she used to, but the corn is just growing out of control recently...but I’m sure none of that interests you. What, someone escape from the county jail again? I’m telling you, I’ve been in there once or twice, no one really to worry about, if that’s the case.”

“We’re not here to inquire about your livestock, Mr. Kirk,” the same man responded, “we need to know if you’ve noticed any suspicious sounds, or any tampering with your house or any of the barns or sheds outside.” Their lack of emotion was almost,  _ almost,  _ unsettling to Jim. They’d managed not to spare a glance to the sparsely decorated kitchen, not landing on the rusty stove or the peeling paint of the cabinets, but rather kept their eyes trained right on Jim, as if they were observing his every move or trying to read his mind.

Jim laughed anyway.

“If you think someone is hiding out here, you’re crazy. I’d notice, I’m the only one in the house, like ever, and the only one who moves anything around here. Even if someone  _ were  _ here, they’re not going to find anything of value to take. I think you’re wasting your time.” The light from the sunrise had begun shining through the kitchen window, and Jim was becoming annoyed. The man looked at his stone-faced, silent companions, emotionless as ever, which Jim translated as a shrug.

“If you see anything, contact us.” The man handed him a business card that was blank aside from a telephone number in simple black type in the center. These guys clearly weren’t the type for any added flair. 

“Yes, sir,” Jim responded, giving a mock salute. He took the business card, already planning to toss it as soon as the men were off his property. The three of them turned to leave, synchronized as if they had rehearsed it, and the opening and closing of the door let in another gasp of cold air. Jim rolled his eyes.

_ Well, that was weird.  _ He thought, as he walked to the stairs and proceeded to go back to his bedroom to get dressed and go see if maybe, just maybe, Betty would want to work with him today. The usual steps gave their creaks, and he rounded the corner of the hallway. However, his path was blocked by a tall, thin man, covered in some kind of  _ green liquid? _

Jim’s thoughts were halted by a sharp pain to his neck, followed by black nothing.

\-----

The first thing Jim noticed when he woke up was the heat. His clothes were stuck to him with sweat, and his sheets were soaked. He’d kicked all of his blankets to the foot of his bed, and the heat was still close to suffocating. The uncomfortable feeling pulled him from sleep without any drowsiness. He sat up quickly and assessed his situation. He had no idea what time it was. He didn’t remember getting into bed, or falling asleep. He certainly didn’t remember cranking up the thermostat. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, pushing the sweat collected there back into his already damp hair, and tried to think past the headache pounding behind his eyes. 

_ Right, the men in his kitchen,  _ he thought,  _ suspicious activities. I wonder if they-  _ Jim’s thoughts were interrupted by the memory of being knocked out by a man in his house.  _ Oh shit. _

Jim’s house had never been broken into before. He lived far from town and didn’t have any neighbors. The old dirt road to the farmhouse drags on. Besides creepy men on official business, he didn’t get many visitors, warranted or not.

Well, when he thought about it, his house seemed perfect to rob. Jim jumped out of bed and grabbed his baseball bat from the closet in his room. He stepped out into the hallway with the bat lifted up to his shoulder. He stopped to glance at the thermostat. 94 degrees. Someone broke into his house, and  _ turned the heat on? _

“Jesus,” Jim said aloud to no one, or to someone, if they were actually in his house, and listening. He switched the knob on the thermostat to  _ off _ .

Maybe the best option was to call the police. However, the Riverside Police Department and Jim Kirk weren’t on the best of terms, and haven’t been in a while. As far as Jim was concerned, drawing attention to himself wasn’t the best idea. Whoever was in his house hadn’t killed him yet. Just knocked him out...then put him to bed. Surely, if killing him were going to happen, it would have while he was unconscious and defenseless, right? He thought about all the movies he’d seen where murderers turned their killings into some kind of game. He gripped the bat a little tighter.

He made his rounds through the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom, throwing each door open quickly and looking around, finding nothing. He was completely on edge and his muscles were tight, but every empty room made it a little easier to breathe. The idea that someone was still in his house started to feel more and more irrational. He crept down the stairs and checked the living room and kitchen. The locks on the door were all intact and locked, just as he had left them. He went to each window, expecting to find one broken. He couldn’t find any indication that someone had made it into the house that way.

These findings were beginning to make Jim feel worse rather than better. He was starting to worry that he was losing his mind, but he couldn’t have made up what happened the night before. The heat that had not yet dissipated was the only reminder that something wasn’t normal. As far as he could tell, nothing had been stolen. Nothing about his situation was making any sense. After checking the entire first floor, Jim returned to the kitchen. He remembered the business card the men had given him the night before. Maybe calling them was a good idea, the worst they could do was laugh in his face when he voiced his paranoia, and they didn’t seem to be the type to laugh at anything.

However, the card that he had left on the counter was no longer there. Something about this revelation rattled him. Why was everything in his house the same, besides his connection to the men that he was growing to suspect had something to do with what was happening to him? 

He took a deep breath as he internally reconciled his paranoia and the fact that the only places left to check in the house were the attic and the basement: prime locations for a slasher film murder scenario. The stairs to the basement led up to the kitchen, so he grabbed a flashlight from the drawer beneath the silverware and began his descent down into the dark. He held the baseball bat in one hand and the flashlight in the other, which was dimly lit, because of course, the batteries were running low. 

The wooden stairs creaked with every step he took, and when Jim reached the bottom he gave the area a quick sweep with his flashlight. Every shadow on the concrete walls and piece of old furniture stored in the basement looked menacing. After a few tense seconds, Jim came to the conclusion that there was, once again, nothing to worry about. Just as he began to turn to walk back up the stairs, a clatter of something falling to the ground made him jump back and let out an embarrassing yell, and he trained his flashlight towards the direction of the noise. He relaxed his stance when he saw the old calico cat that comes in and out of the house as she desired, which he allowed because her now graying fur didn’t mean she still couldn’t take care of all the mice during the winter. 

“Shit, you scared the hell out of me,” Jim said to the cat as he dropped the bat and flashlight in favor of kneeling down to let her nuzzle on his hands, “by the looks of it, you might be losing some of that gracefulness.” He could admit to himself that her company was comforting. He stood back up after some therapeutic petting. This time, when he turned around, he was face to face with another person. 

Jim, who had been in his fair share of fights, immediately swung at the intruder. The man, however, grabbed his fist faster than anyone else Jim had ever fought could have. In a split second, Jim found himself with his arms pinned behind his back. He immediately began to struggle as he tried to pull free from the man’s grasp. 

“What the hell? Let me go!” Jim yelled as he tried in vain to break out of the man’s arms. He did know, however, when to accept defeat, and eventually stopped fighting as it became apparent that his strength came nowhere close to that of the intruder’s. 

“Are you finished?” The man asked him calmly. 

Jim was not calm. Jim was pissed, and scared, and therefore began to swing at the man’s face again. The man easily blocked his fist with his forearm. Jim jumped backward and out of the man’s reach. To his surprise, the man-made no attempt to bridge the gap and try to harm him again. This gave him time to catch his breath, collect his thoughts, and come up with the logical next step in this messed-up scenario. He bent down to pick up his flashlight from where it hit the ground. 

“What do you want?” Jim asked as he stood back up, the beam of his flashlight dragging along the man’s body until it reached his face. Any other words he was about to say were caught in his throat. 

The man was looking at him analytically. Jim’s eyes were on the man’s face, where scabbed over cuts stood out against his skin, dark green where they should be red. His eyebrows were sharp and upturned with their tips close to touching the ends of his hair, styled in the worst bowl-cut Jim had ever seen. His ears were the last straw, green-tinted and ending in a Tolkein-style point, making him look as though he had climbed out of one of the novels that were crammed in Jim’s bookshelf upstairs.

“I’m going crazy,” Jim said aloud, to himself this time, feeling lightheaded. He leaned back against the wooden handrail of the basement stairs. What the hell was happening to him?

“I can assure you that you are not, James,” the man told him, voice just as even as the first time he spoke. 

From the way Jim saw it, he could do one of two things, the first being pass out on the basement floor, and the second, play along with whatever was happening as if he were not losing his mind. Resilient as always, he chose the latter.

“How do you know my name? Who are you?  _ What  _ are you?” Jim asked in a single breath. This time, the man paused before responding to his inquiry, as if he were unsure how to answer the string of questions.

“I know that you are James T. Kirk, because I took the liberty to seek this information while you were unconscious last night. My name is S'chn T'gai Spock.” he answered. The man paused before continuing, “I am what you would call an extraterrestrial.” 

\----

If Jim closed his eyes, he could focus on the feeling of the floor under his feet, his elbows against his old kitchen table, the rickety sounds when he shifted in his chair, and the heat from his coffee mug against his hand. When he opened them, however, he could focus on nothing except the being that sat across from him, occupying one of the usually vacant chairs at the table.

He had offered the intruder a cup of coffee, he was always hospitable, although it had felt more like a weak grapple for some kind of normality. The man had declined, just as respectfully as it had been offered, and now sat with empty hands and a rigid posture that made Jim’s back hurt just from looking at him.

“So, let me get this straight,” Jim said, his hands pressed to his temples as he ran the man’s words through his head, again, trying to get the most basic facts down as if he didn’t feel like his world was collapsing, “you’re an alien. You want me to call you Spock. You were observing Earth, and something brought your...your ship, down into my field.”

The alien,  _ Spock,  _ nodded, with admirable patience, considering this was at least the fifth time Jim had gone over a variation of this list. 

“So, I guess the next question is to ask what you want from me?” Jim asked with no expectations of the answer. What did he have to offer an alien?

Spock hesitated before answering, “I...am in need of your help. I examined my ship, and although the damages are not major enough to render it useless, it does need repairs before it can be used to leave Earth. I need access to tools, and another’s assistance would speed up the process exponentially. As you witnessed, you are not the only one aware of my presence here, and the sooner I am able to leave, the better.”

Jim thought of the countless hours he put into fixing his tractors, ploughs, and other farm equipment. How different could a spaceship be? 

Jim Kirk, repairing a crashed spaceship with a not-so-little green man. 

“Okay, sure, I’ll help you,” Jim told him, grinning.“When do we start?”


	2. Chapter 2

The answer was: after Jim milked the cows and fed the other neglected farm animals. He gave them all a little extra, feeling guilty that he had abandoned them during his close encounter with the third kind. As far as excuses go, he thought it was a good one.

Spock followed him around as he took care of them, asking questions as though it was a school field trip to a museum. Jim had never thought about how weird it was that humans drank milk from cows. When Spock asked about drinking milk from other animals, Jim had shrugged and mentioned goat cheese. Spock found this  _ fascinating.  _ His words, not Jim’s. Spock’s favorite animal, however, was the old calico cat. He didn’t  _ say  _ she was his favorite, but he had crouched down in front of her and let her nuzzle his outstretched hand, leaving Jim dumbfounded. 

“It took her forever to warm up to me,” Jim told him, watching with furrowed brows.

“We met yesterday morning,” Spock said back. He had dirt on his knee when he stood again, taking care to brush it off. Jim noticed that he did look pretty put together for a guy who had crash-landed on a farm a day ago. 

When the animals were all taken care of, Jim took Spock to the tool shed behind the farmhouse and let Spock gather what he thought they would need. Jim raised his eyebrows when he picked up Jim’s rarely used blowtorch, but he said nothing. After Spock was finished sorting through everything, Jim’s arms were full with what he could carry, and Spock’s arms were filled with a little more. Well, a lot more. Jim shrugged off the bruise to his ego, along with his curiosity, and asked Spock about his ship. It obviously wasn’t anywhere he could see from his house or the cow field. 

“It is located approximately 4.42 miles that direction,” Spock answered, turning away from the house, in the opposite direction of the road, towards the cornfields. 

“We have to walk five miles straight through the corn?!” Jim asked, hoping this was some kind of alien joke. These tools were heavy!

Spock raised an eyebrow.

“Is there a complication? I am aware that humans are less physically adept than my species under these conditions, but I was not aware of the extent…” He said, looking at Jim’s body as if he could determine its capabilities with his eyes. 

“No! Nope. Let’s go.” Jim would show him  _ physically adept.  _ They started walking. Spock lead the way, pushing the corn when they reached the edge of the field. Jim was silently grateful for the added ease to the trek. 

They walked in silence, with Jim focused on not dropping his armful of tools, and Spock managing to make carrying his, while keeping the corn out of their path, look easy.

“So, you said that your species was, uh, even stronger than humans? Is there anything we’ve got on you guys?” Jim finally asked him, concealing the fact that he was out of breath from keeping up with Spock’s brisk long legged strides.

Spock stayed silent for long enough that Jim began to worry that he had somehow offended him. He eventually spoke.

“Vulcans are taught that we must value logic and emotional control above all else. My people look down upon species like yours, who freely express their emotions despite any repercussions. I believe that this may be a flaw within our ideology,” Spock said, his voice sounding the slightest bit clipped, “I have not voiced this theory to another person.”

Jim smiled. He couldn’t imagine a society filled with people so uptight that they hated emotions. He liked the idea of Spock sticking it to the man, at least in his brain. 

“Well, Spock, I promise your secret’s safe with me.” 

Spock looked at him and nodded, and Jim realized that maybe what Spock had told him was more significant than he realized, and he wanted to know more about this man,  _ alien,  _ and his alien planet of robots. Before he could ask another question, Spock pushed a few more corn stalks away, and Jim’s thoughts halted. 

“Holy shit.” Jim had thought that nothing could ever stop him in his tracks again, not after seeing a six foot tall elf man bleeding in his house. As he stared at Spock’s ship in front of him, he knew he was wrong. Its silver metal gleamed in the midday sun, and even covered in mud and a bit dented up, it was the most awesome thing Jim had ever seen.

“This is the most awesome thing I have ever seen,” Jim told Spock, turning to look at him, beaming.

“Yes, I suppose that could be accurate,” Spock replied, his eyes settling on Jim’s face, and Jim swore he could discern some softness in them. 

Jim looked away, feeling something akin to shyness among his excitement.

“So, should we take a look under the hood?” Jim asked.

\----

Together, they worked on Spock’s ship until the sun began to set. Jim had attentively followed any directions Spock had given him, while asking him questions about the alien technology. It was nothing like the inner workings of the farm equipment he knew like the back of his hand. Spock had welcomed the questions and Jim’s quick understanding of his answers and explanations, and Jim could not help but feel a sense of pride any time he was able to correctly guess a function of a part or a solution to a problem caused by the crash. He didn’t want the experience to end, but the temperature had begun to drop and Jim had noticed Spock shivering. He remembered the stuffy heat of the farmhouse that morning.

“It’s getting cold, huh? You think we should head in for the night?” Jim asked him. 

“I believe that would be best,” Spock answered.

This time, their walk was filled with conversation. Jim found out that Spock had his own alien animal back home, who sounded like a scary teddy bear with a name Jim could have never pronounced. His father was a big-shot in the Vulcan government, and Spock had gone to some kind of Vulcan version of Harvard.

“What about your mom?” Jim asked. 

Spock hesitated before he answered, “My mother is a very remarkable woman. She used to be a schoolteacher...” he paused before continuing, “...here on Earth. She is human.” He looked at Jim, noticeably awaiting his reaction. 

Jim stopped walking abruptly, “Wait, what? How is that even possible?” His head spun as considered the possibility of routine secret alien abductions all over the planet. Spock began to speak.

“Years ago, my father studied Earth, just as I am now. He wanted to know more about your species than observing from a distance allowed, and driven by his scientific curiosity he went against his assignment in order to do so. He had not intended to make contact with any human, but he was discovered by my mother. Much like you, she was compelled by the opportunity to learn more about Vulcans and the universe beyond what you know. Eventually, they...fell in love. My father contacted Vulcan and presented the union as an invaluable academic and scientific pursuit. They agreed to let her join him on Vulcan. I was conceived with the help of Vulcan scientists. I am the only Human-Vulcan hybrid in existence,” he explained.

“Wow, Spock, that’s incredible. Many people never even leave their home country, and your mom went across space. That must have been terrifying,” Jim said. He thought about what it must be like for Spock, to be one-of-a-kind. He wondered if he ever felt lonely. That was something Jim could relate to, loneliness. 

“And your family, Jim? I noticed no other signs of any other human living in your home,” Spock asked him. Jim laughed, but it lacked humor.

“Yeah, my dad died while my mom was still pregnant with me. He was in the military. She still is. She’s an officer. She hasn’t been here in years,” Jim told him. He played it off, but it hurt to think about his mom’s disappointment that he had no desire to dedicate his life to the military like she has, like his dad did. He also knew that she stayed away because Jim reminded her of her dead husband more than she could stomach. 

“Is that typical, for Earth? To not live among one’s family?” Spock asked him.

“No, not really, but everyone’s family is a little fucked up.”

Jim laughed when Spock nodded in agreement. They walked quietly until they reached the farmhouse, dropping their tools off at the shed on their way. 

“So, you can sleep in the guest bedroom, it’s right upstairs,” Jim told Spock once they were inside. He pulled off his boots at the kitchen door, dropping them and letting them land where they may. Spock hesitated before removing his shoes and placing them neatly next to Jim’s. 

“Thank you,” Spock told him. Jim nodded and they stood awkwardly for a few moments.

“Not that you have to like, go there now, there’s the living room, over there,” Jim gestured towards the small room that had the television and a comfy old sofa. 

“I have not rested since I landed on Earth. I believe that must take priority,” Spock told him. Jim didn’t want to think about why he felt disappointed that this alien didn’t want to hang out with him.

“Yeah, totally! No problem,” Jim told him with questionable cheerfulness.

Spock turned to walk up the stairs, but stopped and turned to Jim before he went upstairs, “thank you, for your help today, Jim. It was...valuable,” he said, carefully.

Jim beamed, a little, at the compliment, “uh, yeah, no problem. I’ll see you down here in the morning, ready to do it all over again?”

Spock nodded in response and walked up the stairs. 

Jim decided to set up camp in the living room, anyway. He sat on the couch and wrapped himself in an old quilt that he kept folded on the back, always ready for a day of fighting the cold with a sitcom marathon. Tonight, he turned the television on, flicking through the channels until he landed on something boring enough to  _ maybe _ help him fall asleep. Despite his mind still racing with questions and doubts and, perhaps the most intense,  _ curiosity,  _ Jim felt himself drift into a restless sleep.

\----

Jim woke to the familiar sound of his alarm clock, which didn’t strike him as concerning until he felt the familiar pain in his neck that came with sleeping on the old couch. He blinked sleep out of his eyes until he saw Spock standing a few feet in front of him, holding his beeping clock. 

“You’re awake. I believe this signals that it is time to begin your daily routine. I brought it here to wake you,” he told Jim, holding the clock out for him to take. He took it and pressed the  _ off  _ button. 

“Oh, thanks, Spock,” he responded, fighting a grin at Spock’s methods as he sat up and stretched. His stomach grumbled, and he needed caffeine. “You hungry?”

With that, their day began with breakfast. Jim had his usual of two fried eggs and three pieces of toast, and Spock seemed content with a sampling of vegetables from the garden. He told him about his mother’s unsuccessful attempts to garden on Vulcan, and told him of her fondness of tomatoes, despite not having one since she left Earth. 

“You can bring her some, from here, when you go back. That’s alright, isn’t it? Bringing something back? A souvenir?” Jim asked him, thinking about the Niagara Falls snow globe on his desk upstairs. That childhood road trip with his mother that had seemed so long paled in comparison to lightyears of space.

“My father and others undoubtedly have tracked my ship and deduced what has occurred. I see no logical argument as to why I can not bring...souvenirs to represent my time here.” Spock replied after a moment of consideration. Jim imagined something from the farmhouse sitting in Spock’s bedroom at home, on his desk. Something about that thought was too much for him, insurmountable, tightening in his chest. 

The rest of the day went by much like the previous, leaving Jim and Spock sitting at the kitchen table after working on Spock’s ship until sundown. They had just finished a dinner of pork chops, which Spock did not eat, Asparagus, which he, if Jim were the judge of it, loved, and mashed potatoes, which seemed to confound him more than anything he had seen on Earth thus far. 

“There is something I wished to ask you about, Jim,” Spock asked him in his even cadence that Jim had found himself accustomed to, “from your guest room.”

Jim’s eyes widened, wondering what weird thing Spock had stumbled across. Spock had already stood and gestured for Jim to follow him to the room where Spock had slept last night. Jim noticed that the bed was perfectly made. Even the throw pillows were perfectly arranged against the headboard. Spock opened the chest that sat at the end of the bed and pulled out a chess board.

“Oh! Yeah, that’s chess. It’s a game that, honestly, you would probably like. It’s definitely based on logic and strategy,” Jim told him, resisting the urge to ask him if he had gone exploring through Jim’s items. Maybe he should have felt like his privacy had been breached, but he couldn’t help but find it, well, endearing. 

“I believe we have a similar game on Vulcan. I would like to compare them. Would you teach me?”

They spent the rest of the night sitting criss-cross opposite from each other on Spock’s bed playing match after match. By the time Jim’s yawning became too frequent to ignore, Spock had beaten him more than a few times. Well, every time after the first initial match. Jim hadn’t had this much fun in a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Chapter 3 will be up soon. tumblr: stvrtrck

**Author's Note:**

> comments from you all are out of this world. Thank you for reading!! Find me on tumblr at stvrtrck :)


End file.
